Gantt chart is one of the most desirable add-ons for Jira. What’s the rationale behind this? People tend to internalize pictures easier than text. And this is exactly what the Gantt chart is all about – to visualize the workflow of your project. Nevertheless, Gantt charts are not a standard feature of Jira. So how to obtain Gantt diagrams for Jira free of charge?

Free Gantt chart for a blink-of-an-eye project

Perhaps your project is not going to last long. Some Gantt plug-ins are available free for an evaluation period. Just research “gantt chart” key phrase on Atlassian Marketplace. Our BigGantt is available free of charge for 30 days straight1. And for some, it turns out forever free – read on.

1 Beyond “30 days” boundary, with no license having been purchased, BigGantt add-on will still function, in semi-read-only mode. While drag&drop operations will be disabled, the Gantt chart will be visible on your screen. Moreover reflecting changes made to the project in your core Jira.

Free Gantt chart for certain ‘industries’

We give out our Gantt chart add-on for free to those who have acquired Atlassian’s Community Licence (registered non-profit charitable organizations).

Charities, as well as selected hospitals, libraries, and churches (those who were granted Atlassian’s Community License), have received free licenses of our Gantt chart. Some 15% of BigGantt licenses have been given away for free. Are the below institutions similar to your organization?

the majority of those who did, received an infinitely free BigGantt add-on license.

Note that the free license opportunity only applies to BigGantt Server and Data Center, and not to the Cloud Edition.

Over 10 users?

Even with more than 10 users, you are still eligible for a discounted licence2. Check BigGantt’s pricing. Then e-mail us your case study – as described under the ‘Small business’ header above. You’ll get a rebate of 5%. Our support team will assist you in the case study authoring. Posting a review on Atlassian Marketplace might amplify your voice ;)

2 The discounted license opportunity only applies to BigGantt Server and Data Center, and not to the Cloud Edition.

BigGantt vs. other “Gantts” for Jira

As far as UX (user experience) is concerned we believe no one is matching BigGantt. And Gantt charts are all about visualization. Obviously, competition does exist and some Gantt chart add-ons are obviously better than others.

OK, do any “unconditionally” free Jira Gantt chart add-ons exist?

None we are aware of. We’ve been developing ours since late 2013. Initially, two programmers were involved, the team gradually grew to 4, and later 7 programmers. We’ve recorded over 400 fixed bugs up until now and made approx. 800 amendments to the app. Indeed, it’s quite a job to develop a working Gantt chart plugin for Jira.

(b) Trello Gantt chart modules. Trello is small- & medium-size business-oriented PPM platform, having been recently acquired by Atlassian. We have developed a Gantt chart add-on for Trello and the license is free.

(c) Excel-based Gantt charts – some are certainly free but be warned – while Excel used to be a project management device in the early aughts, it proved not dependable with large projects. Excel sheets and formulas tend to get erased or damaged all too easily by an inexperienced team member, and MS Excel had not been devised for collaborative working in mind.

Which leads us to dedicated project management apps like Jira and Trello – with free Gantt charts for those who do their best.

Aug 2019BigPicture 7.4 for Jira Server, Data Center and Cloud is now live. It has new Quick assignee, Multi-select, and Time Tracking (Spent) features, among others.July 2019
New Reporting component for BigPicture 7.3 and the corresponding version of BP Enterprise is scheduled for a release in July. Pie and column charts, as well as spreadsheet-style reports, will be available – more.

About The Author

We're SoftwarePlant team. We're striving to make Jira, Trello, Google Calendar and 'you name it' task management software talk to each other, and at the speed of light. We will one day unite them all. When the dream comes true will you still need any 'uber-software', other than BigPicture, to manage projects?